Posted on by Californiacontrarian

Not Unforeseen

Well it appears that the Democrats have done it again as their policies again are hurting those they were supposed to help. This time it is the expansion of Medicaid in Obamacare, a totally Democratic dying behemoth.

In an interestingly ironic and presumably not intended fashion a recent The Wall Street Journal aligned an editorial op-ed and a letter to the editor that both talked about Medicaid and some of the problems related to unforeseen consequences. “Unforeseen consequences” is that bugaboo that is always brought up when things do not go as smoothly as the designers trumpeted, and of course the designers in essence say that their design is not at fault because what is now happening is totally unexpected and could not have been predicted.

It’s the old, “We are innocent! You cannot blame us just because things did not turn out as we had planned. It is not our fault that these ‘unforeseen consequences’ popped up out of nowhere to ruin our perfectly designed plan.”

Rubbish! These ‘unforeseen consequences’ are not unforeseen.

The letter to the editor was from a parent with a truly disabled adult child who in essence said that Obamacare had expanded “the pool of people eligible to dip their spoon in the pot”, and thus as a consequence the truly needy were no longer getting the quality of care that they had gotten in the pre-ACA era. The writer closed out by saying that repealing Obamacare would put the money back into the pot that could now be used to help his daughter and other truly needy and truly disabled individuals.

Of course the liberal response to this statement of fact, would be that what is happening is merely an unforeseen consequence of them trying to help others by expanding Medicaid eligibility. But in fact this type of outcome is actually truly predictable, and not “unforeseen.”

“If you open up the trough, many more will come to drink the free water, and not all will have been thirsty.”

The adjacent op-ed piece details many facts concerning the now deadly opioid abuse crisis and it’s possible relationship to the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare. It details many of the statistics in states that opted into the Medicaid expansion versus those adjacent states that did not opt in. (These statistics are so amazing that I had to read and reread them multiple times.) Opioid related deaths increased 108% in New Hampshire (opt in state) compared to 55% in adjacent Maine (did not opt in state). In Maryland (opt in state) the drug-related deaths in creased by 44% compared to 22% in adjacent Virginia (did not opt in state). Likewise drug fatalities increased 41% in Ohio (opt in state) whereas they increased by only 3% in nearby Wisconsin (did not opt in state).

Even more amazing a recent study by Express Scripts Holding discovered that approximately 25% of Medicaid patients were prescribed an opiate in 2015. The fact that one in four Medicaid patients was prescribed an opiate (often with a very low co-pay) shouts out, “There is something very wrong with this system!”

Unforeseen? . . . Not to those who actually use their brain, as this is just another example of:

“If you open the trough, many more will come to drink the free water, and not all will have been thirsty!”?

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